A Lesson in the Joys of Learning

Later life offers a chance to embrace the unfamiliar. Including honeybees.

By

Robbie Shell

April 9, 2012

Like a lot of people in the publishing world, I have spent many years dealing with hard and fast deadlines—setting them, meeting them, occasionally missing them. To some extent, they have defined what I read and when, what I talk about, who I talk to.

Lately, however, I have found myself wondering more and more what life will be like without these daily hard stops and starts. Once I decide to get off the treadmill—once I finally retire—will I be less motivated to think about new ideas or meet new people? Will my sense of curiosity about the world start, ever so slightly, to lose its edge?

Friends share the same anxiety. For most of us, our common grievance over the past few decades has been "so much to do, so little time." Soon, we realize, it could be the reverse: "too little to do, too much time."

ENLARGE

Yvetta Fedorova

One friend calls the future "a big yawning chasm," suggesting both boredom and emptiness. Another worries that she will miss the soap opera of office relationships that require us to engage with others and be engaging as well. A third, who recently finished running a large fund-raising campaign, has said she knows that walking the dog and planning the next trip won't cut it for long.

Writer's block happens when you sit down to write and no words come out. What happens when you sit down to plan a future and no ideas come out?

I think I have found an answer to these concerns from an unlikely source: bees.

It Started With Honey

Until recently, the faintest sound of a bee would put me on high alert, ready to run for cover once it (or rather, she, as I recently learned) buzzed into view. But last fall, on a beautiful clear morning in Lancaster County, Pa., I found myself standing in the midst of a swarm of honeybees, two of them crawling up the arm of my sweater and one, I was pretty sure, walking around in my hair. About 10 feet away was a hive, with more bees sunning themselves on a narrow landing board.

I wasn't wearing the protective netting or gloves that one associates with beekeepers. I was calmly talking with the hive's owner, whom I had driven out from Philadelphia to see. I wanted to understand what beekeeping was all about. One of the first things he told me was that if you don't make any moves that might startle the bees, don't get in their flight path and don't act like you are afraid they will sting you, then (most likely) they won't.

It was a big moment for me, and it started out almost by accident when my brother dropped off a jar of honey produced by two hives in his backyard. Since the honey was better than any I had bought in a store, I began to show some interest in his hives, from a distance.

The next week, I noticed a listing in our local newspaper for a beekeeping demonstration at a nearby nature habitat. I decided to go, if only to buy more honey. I got, not stung, but hooked—captivated by these tiny industrious insects, whose social order is spectacularly efficient and complex.

For example, I now know that the career of a female worker bee spans many jobs, from nursemaid to forager, wax producer to water carrier. I know that individual bees will fly up to nine miles in search of nectar, and that they can convey a flower bed's location to their fellow bees just by the way they flap their wings and wiggle their tails. I know how a beekeeper at a county fair is able to attract a huge cluster of bees to his upper body to form what looks like a long bee beard, and I know the steps that will follow when a package of honeybees arrives from the U.S. Postal Service, ready to set up shop (build honeycomb) in their new home.

A Glimpse of the Future

Beekeepers are intriguing in their own right, a clannish culture as likely to practice their rituals on the roofs of New York City apartment buildings as in suburban backyards and rural pastures. They tend their bees with the intensity and love of a mother looking after her brood (my brother calls the bees his "girls") and they worry constantly about the health of their hives—ingenious, multilayered structures that house thousands of worker (female) bees, up to a couple of hundred lazy drones (male bees) and the all important queen.

I have no plans to be a beekeeper myself. It requires a constant awareness of the bees' seasonal cycle, and lack of attention can mean losing the hive. But I have considered writing a book about the beekeeping community and the zeal with which its members fiercely debate beekeeping philosophy. It may turn out that my future lies less in taking on new occupations, and more in writing about the full-blown passions of others.

Learning for Its Own Sake

Whatever I decide, this immersion into the bee kingdom has reminded me that the joy of learning can exist for its own sake instead of to prepare for an interview or meet a deadline. I feel that when the time comes, I will be able to punch through the invisible wall that separates the familiar present life from the unknown years that lie ahead.

Transitions in life can offer opportunities for discovery, provided we are open to random encounters and serendipitous events. Unfamiliar experiences are out there waiting to engage us, even if we can't predict what they are or how we'll find them. Anticipation is part of the joy. After all, I would never have guessed just a few months ago that I could quietly observe honeybees crawling up my sleeve, and feel intense pleasure watching them take flight to a field of clover, a small band of determined pollinators adding to the glorious hum of summer.

Ms. Shell is an editor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She can be reached at next@wsj.com.

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